Respect the Bee

Updated on July 2, 2010

The Wide World of Bees

One
of
the most familiar insects in the world is the common Honeybee! Bees of all kinds plays
a key
role in the human and natural world alike. More has been written about
honeybees than any
other species of insect. Why is that? Well, The human fascination with this insect
began many many
years ago when people discovered what incredibly tasty stuff honey
is!

Honeybees have a bright color
pattern to warn potential predators (or honey thieves!)
that they have a weapon to defend themselves. Their weapon is a
modified egg-laying tube (ovipositor) . This is
combined with a venom gland to create a stinger
located on the lower belly. The stinger is modified from a structure found
only in females bees. Male bees cannot sting. When the hive is threatened, honeybees will
swarm out and
attack with their stingers to drive the enemy away.

Honeybees, like most insects,
look at the world through compound
eyes. These are made of hundreds of small
simple eyes called ommatidia.
The images received by
all the ommatidia are put together in the insect's brain to give it a
very different way
of seeing the world.

Honeybees
are social insects.
In the wild, they create elaborate nests called hives
containing up to 20,000 individuals during the summer months.
(Domestic hives may
have over 80,000 bees.) They work together in a highly structured
social
order. Each bee belongs to one of three specialized groups called castes. The different
castes are: queens, drones
and
workers.

Bees in action

The Main types of Bees

There is only
one queen in a hive and her main purpose in life is to make more
bees. She can lay up to 2,000 eggs per day and will live two to eight years!! Can you believe that? An insect live up to 8 years! She
is much bigger (up to 20mm)
than the workers or drones (12mm). She has
chewing
mouth parts. Queens have a curved stinger with no barbs or obstruction on it and can be used many times.

Drones are males only and have no stinger. Their life span is only about eight weeks. There are a few
hundred at most, ever present in the hive. Their sole
function is to mate
with a new queen, if one is produced in a given year. A drone's
eyes are noticeably
bigger than those of the other castes. This helps them to spot
the queens when they
are on their nuptial flight. Any drones left at the end of the
season are considered
non-essential and will be driven out of the hive to die.

Worker bees do
all the different tasks needed to operate and maintain the
hive. They make up the bulk of the hive's residents and they are all sterile
females. When young,
they are called house bees
and
work in the hive doing brood rearing, comb construction, tending
the queen and drones,
cleaning and protecting the hive. Older
workers are called field bees.
They head outside of
the hive to reap nectar, pollen, water and certain sticky things used to build the hive. Workers born early in the season will live about 6
weeks while those
born in the fall will live until the following spring. Weird huh?

Workers
are about 12 mm long
and highly specialized for what they do, they have little pollen baskets behind each leg that can be used to store extra goods they are harvesting. They have a
straight, barbed stinger
which can only be used once. It is unfortunately ripped out after application.

Hi Honey, I'm Home

Honey is a
thick, sweet liquid produced by certain types of bees from the
nectar of
flowers. Honeybees refine and
concentrate nectar to make
honey. They (honeybees) make loads of honey so they will have
plenty of
food for winter time when flower nectar is unavailable. Unlike most
insects, honeybees
remain very active through the winter, consuming honey and keeping
busy
in order to keep from
freezing to death. (Hence the term "busy as a bee")

People very early on
most likely watched bears and other hungry animals raid bee
hives for honey and then tried it themselves! Once people found out
what honey was,
next they had to learn how to get it from the bees safely!

Where are the bees going??

COLONY COLLAPSE DISORDER

Colony collapse disorder (or CCD
for short) refers to a mysterious phenomenom affecting
domestic honeybees. It causes them to leave the hive and never
return, leading ultimately
to the end of the colony. First noticed in the fall of 2006 in the United States, CCD has been
the focus of loads of research to try to determine what's causing it.
Pathogens,
environmental toxins, parasites, and even cell phone transmissions
have been the subject of
investigation. One factor
that has been
identified and uniquely associated with CCD is a virus known as
Israeli Acute
Paralysis Virus (IAPV). It is not proven yet that IAPV is the sole
cause of CCD, but
it is found in nearly all hives affected by CCD. A possible
scenario is that CCD is
triggered by various stress factors in bees infected with IAPV.
Research is
currently underway to test this hypothesis.

Bake cake 40 – 45 minutes until golden brown. Remove to a rack. Poke
lots of holes into top of cake with a toothpick. Pour syrup over cake
in pan. Let sit in pan overnight. If necessary use a knife to loosen
sides of cake from pan. Turn out onto a cake plate.

Syrup:
While cake is baking prepare syrup. In a medium saucepan combine 1 1/2
cups honey with 1 1/2 cups orange juice. Bring to a boil and simmer at a
low boil for 5 minutes. Remove from heat. Skim off any foam.

Honey and Sage Cold Syrup

Steep sage in a cup filled
with boiling water for 10 minutes. Strain out sage and allow the mixture
to cool. Place honey in a jar and add vinegar and sage water. Shake
well. Take 2 teaspoons every hour.

Firming Facial Mask

You remember the egg white
mask? Take it to the next level by adding the moisturizing goodness of
honey!

yum yum

We want Honey Comb!

The
central feature of the bee hive is the honeycomb.
This marvel of insect
engineering consists of flat vertical panels of six-sided cells
made of beeswax.
Beeswax is produced
from glands on the underside of the abdomens of worker bees when
they are between 12 and
15 days old. House bees take the beeswax and form it with their
mouths into the
honeycomb. The cells within the comb are used to raise young
and to store honey and
pollen.The
comb is two-sided, with cells on both sides. As you can see, the cells
are perfectly uniform in shape. Not only that, but the combs
are built a precise
distance apart depending on whether they are meant to contain
food or young bees.
The nursery area of the hive is called the brood
comb,
and that is where the queen lays her eggs.

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